harmless, mutual attachment. He has invested her with some touch of feeling and magnanimity and held her capable of friendship. As for the main design of 'Lui et Elle,' to show us a démon,' a syren singing her song amidst the bones of men whom she has allured and destroyed, it is no more than what her autobiography tells us in smoother words as not recognizing the harm of the process; for after prudently announcing her intention de se taire on many circumstances of her life, she thinks well to explain :

Toutes mes affections ont été sérieuses, et pourtant j'en ai brisé plusieurs sciemment et volontairement. Aux yeux de mon entourage j'ai agi trop tôt ou trop tard, j'ai eu tort ou raison, selon qu'on a plus ou moins bien connu les causes de mes résolutions. Outre que ces débats d'intérieur auraient peu d'intérêt pour le lecteur, le seul fait de les présenter à son appréciation serait contraire à toute délicatesse, car je serais forcée de sacrifier parfois la personnalité d'autrui à ma mienne propre. Puis-je, cependant, pousser cette délicatesse jusqu'à dire que j'ai été injuste en de certaines occasions pour le plaisir de lêtre? Là commencerait le mensonge, et qui donc en serait dupe? Il est des personnes que j'ai vues à travers un prisme d'enthousiasme et vis-à-vis desquelles j'ai eu le grand tort de recouvrer la lucidité de mon jugement. Tout ce qu'elles avaient à me demander, c'était de bons procédés, et je défie qui que ce soit de dire que j'ai manqué à ce fait. Pourtant, leur irritation a été vive, et je le comprends très-bien.'-Histoire de ma Vie, vol. xvi. p. 169.

We owe an apology to our readers for touching on the facts indicated by these allusions; but whenever we can know the character and life of a writer we shall find it the most valuable comment and elucidation of his writings. The works of George Sand possessing this commentary, we cannot dispense with its It is unique, like the works themselves. Never have a correct and elegant style, and all the graces of literature, been so employed; for the syrens did not print their enchantments, nor write their lives.

use.

George Sand's theories have been called her philosophy; that is, the dispassionate convictions of her reason organized into a system. It is assumed that genius must always have a fixed purpose, and that hers set itself to the work of breaking down the corrupt system of society as she saw it: but we are satisfied that her whole line is one of mere self-defence-it is the case of the fox without a tail--as we see in her life, where her one object is to prove herself right, perfect in principle and conduct, and to group all things in heaven and earth so as to demonstrate this as an axiom. She has certain tastes, she has committed certain definite acts, which seem to militate against this view. In her novels she sets herself to show logically, by illustration, that so far from betraying weakness or defect, this course of action is the only virtue; that it is so sublime and so essential 2 D

VOL. II. No. IV.

to the development of the whole being, that it is to lack the best part of our nature to be without these tendencies, and mere sacrilege to have them and not to obey them; and this is the line of all her philosophy.' It was her wild career which makes her whole series a protest against l'esclavage and la tyranniewhich mean too often the morals and the forms of civilized, not to say Christian, life.

What we have said of her course as a whole, as a fruit of national demoralization, applies to her theory of marriage, or rather against that ordinance, which could hardly have been formed, or received with sympathy, anywhere but in France, where the habits and traditions of a corrupt society had brought about so general a disregard and indifference to its sanctifying influences. Of course, after the manner of those who seek to prove themselves right by showing all the rest of the world wrong, she traduces society, and makes vice the rule, because it is a frequent exception; but still the French manner of contracting marriage, and the frequent subsequent treatment of the contract, gave her a plea and a hold which our country, for instance, could not have furnished. She had the ordinary motives for writing; she wanted money, and she felt the stirrings of genius; but her particular line was dictated, not by the sins of society, as she would have us think, though they were the remote cause, but by her own particular deviations, which produced somewhere in herself a certain amount of restlessness and discomfort.

It must strike every observant reader that conscience has no place-does not exist in those tales which develop George Sand's theories. It may sometimes be referred to, and even assumed, as an influence (because it is a word that will creep in wherever human motives are discussed); but all her favourite characters deliver themselves, at one time or another, of such sentiments as these:-'I have never imposed principles on myself; I have never felt the need. I have never been led where I did not wish to go. I have uniformly yielded to all my fancies.' Indeed, she seems to consider private conscience rather a conceited thing. La grande conscience de l'humanité' is what alone oppresses her. What does it matter how innocent, what probity, what serenity, what sweetness reigns in the heart, if we feel in the midst of impurity, sur une terre souillée, parmi des êtres sans foi ni loi?' What signifies being good ourselves, if we cannot make the world good? It matters not what you have done, what sins you have committed, if you still feel in yourself the full exercise of faculties pour le vrai et pour le juste." But though conscience is thus ignored and stifled, we think we detect it now and then con

cealed under the mask of that SPLEEN so often pleaded in the 'life,' that BILE which plays so conspicuous a part (which is even supposed to have been the real vulture that played upon Prometheus), and even more evidently in that Ennui which exercises such terrible sway over her loftiest conceptions, growing a power, a divinity, under her hands; which she sometimes flatters and worships, calling it un mal très-noble, the next most potent influence to love. May not a lurking sense of conscience have some undiscerned share in the longing expressed, in the following passage for some new system which shall get rid for ever of certain importunate misgivings :

'Qui sait si elle (la poésie) ne sera pas la divinité douce et bienfaisante d'une autre génération, et si elle ne succédera pas au doute et au désespoir dont notre siècle est atteint? Qui sait si dans un nouveau code de morale, dans un nouveau catéchisme religieux, le dégoût et la tristesse ne seront pas fletris comme des vices, tandis que l'amour, l'espoir et l'admiration seront récompensés comme des vertus?'-André, p. 61.

There is such a close connection between conscience and the idea of a future state, that the absence of one may account for the want of the other; and these works certainly show a mind wonderfully impervious to the idea of an hereafter. And here the circumstances of her life come in again. Persons not themselves religious gather some elevation from the tone around them. Very likely they may not be preparing for heaven, but it offers a distinct picture to their imagination. But George Sand literally does regard this world as though there were no other. She does not treat the question philosophically-she even alludes to les cieux with an affectation of unction; but there never is a moment's recognition of this world as a preparation-as leading to another: and we hold it impossible to entertain the idea of eternity, and not, at least in theory, to allow it to enter into our calculations. But no; all her fancy, all her intellect, all her senses, are chained down to this life. It is a wonder to see powers like hers held in such strict unrelenting bondage to time and matter. Her own especial creations, types of what is great and sublime, her ideals, all live for time, for the present, for the gratification of the hour, in a way inexpressibly mournful and depressing, if we realize the state of mind that conceived them. It is this which gives the force to her idea of Ennui as a power; it is horror of a void, of satiety, of moments lost from enjoyment, when life is so short at the best. And life with her is circumscribed far within its natural term. She gives us to understand very plainly that after the age of at most forty, people have nothing better to do than go and hang themselves. Middle life with her is a period when

the craving for pleasure continues without the power of gratifying it. There are passages of acute melancholy where this is realized; we have a beauty watching the decay of her charms, as line by line, and, tint by tint, they fade before her very eyes, and screaming, as well she may, at the sight of a wrinkle. We have others greedily reckoning the period that remains to them when it is possible to inspire passion, and flying from life when the hope leaves them. One of her most admired works, 'Lettres d'un Voyageur,' treats of this subject-the pains of growing old-at length. There occurs this passage on the 'gaiete' of the writer under the blank prospect:

'La nature humaine ne veut pas ce que lui nuit; l'âme ne veut pas souffrir, le corps ne veut pas mourir, et c'est en face de la douleur la plus vraie et de la maladie la plus sérieuse que l'âme et le corps se mettent à nier et à fuir l'approche odieuse de la destruction. Il est des crises violentes où le suicide devient un besoin, une rage; c'est une certaine portion du cerveau qui souffre et s'atrophie physiquement. Mais que cette crise passe; la nature, la robuste nature que Dieu a faite pour durer son temps, étend ses bras désolés et se rattache aux moindres brins d'herbe pour ne pas rouler dans sa fosse. En faisant la vie de l'homme si misérable, la Providence a bien su qu'il fallait donner à l'homme l'horreur de la mort. Et cela est le plus grand, le plus inexplicable des miracles qui concourent à la durée du genre humain; car quiconque verrait clairement ce qui est, se donnerait la mort. Ces moments de clarté funeste nous arrivent, mais nous n'y cédons pas toujours, et le miracle qui fait refleurir les plantes après la neige et la glace s'opère dans le cœur de l'homme.'-Lettres d'un Voyageur, p. 133.

No wonder that a mind a prey to these dismal impressions loses its sense of the ridiculous; in fact, the standard of the absurd is changed. No empty gratification, no short-lived triumph, no low indulgence, no trivial disappointment, is paltry or immaterial when it is all that a completed existence will furnish. A keen intelligence united to low transitory pleasures must necessarily infringe on our ideas of taste; as perhaps it may be considered to do in the following touching and poetical reflections on the theory of intoxication:

• Pourquoi, au milieu de nos soupers, où, Dieu merci, le bruit et la gaieté ne vont pas à demi, y en a-t-il quelques-uns parmi nous qui se mettent à pleurer sans savoir pourquoi? Il est ivre, disent les autres. Mais pourquoi le vin qui fait rire ceux-ci fait-il sangloter celui-là? O gaieté de l'homme, que tu touches de près à la souffrance! Et quel est donc ce pouvoir d'un son, d'un objet, d'une pensée vague sur nous tous? Quand nous sommes vingt fous criant dans tous les tons faux, et chantant sur toutes les gammes incohérentes de l'ivresse, s'il en est un qui fasse un signe solennel en disant: Ecoutez! tous se taisent et écoutent."

With this training, with these opinions, our authoress entered on her artist life. But they were not the qualifications she took count of as her stock in trade. She was conscious of keen

observation, of a habit of estimating character, of a genuine love of nature, of a fancy already exercised in an imaginary world of its own, and, above all, of a vague sense of power. To this we would add a rare and felicitous skill in analyzing every familiar taste and feeling. Those things which are pleasant to eye or ear or feeling, we have never thought why, she could illuminate with a reason; and, in a few distinct, telling words, invest mere impressions with clear thought, showing us why we like and why we dislike. All these she had, and one grace more, which no one can be sure of for himself-an admirable style. It is this which has constituted her charm with her countrymen; it is this which, eluding translation, confines the fascination to those who can not only read French, but who have ears and tastes cultivated in the refinements of the language. As stories for common readers, we are glad to know that her writings (and justly) are considered dull by the English public. Simply as style, as narrative, as a medium for conveying ideas, raising pictures, expressing every change of feeling, it possesses a wonderful charm when taken at its best; without professing a Frenchman's full power of appreciation, we own it fresh, supple, vigorous, transparent, and distinctive, marked by a wild grace peculiarly its own: Vrai et naïf,' as her countrymen say. In the poetical descriptions of nature, especially, there is a peculiar rhythm and melody, leading us to find pleasure in the mere flow of the words. Like all good styles it expresses a mind capable of a strong grasp, which sees things as a whole, as a picture with all its light and shade-which knows from the first perfectly what it wants to say--which takes in a whole thought at a glance, and unwinds it in harmonious phrases, following each other in clear natural order. There is a picture in the preface to La Mare au Diable,' which strikes us as a masterpiece of language. It is a contrast between Holbein's mournful picture of the old ploughman, whose weary team is driven by death, and a scene of vigorous rural life. The graphic force, the harmony of words, the knowledge, the grand simplicity of detail by which the noble rustic, his child, his oxen, his song, are brought before us, constitute it a poem, and make it, and the tale of which it is the prelude, one of the most charming idyls we know. Wherever there are definitions to be given, natural scenes to be described, impressions recorded, states of feeling analyzed, characters delineated, her style is a perfect instrument for the work; but when we come to the author's peculiar theories, either as statements or by illustration, we recognize a difficulty. She has to use a language built on one system of thought to